


i can get by the days just fine

by whisperedwords



Series: an idiot's guide to maybe-sorta-kinda falling in love with your fellow outcast superheroes [5]
Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Affirmations of Love, Aftermath of Parental Reveal, Circa 1x11, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Hero Guilt, Multi, Not Beta Read, POV Courtney, Self-Doubt, Sharing a Bed, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25985308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whisperedwords/pseuds/whisperedwords
Summary: but the nights-It's all her fault, really.
Relationships: Beth Chapel/Yolanda Montez/Rick Tyler/Courtney Whitmore
Series: an idiot's guide to maybe-sorta-kinda falling in love with your fellow outcast superheroes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819771
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	i can get by the days just fine

**Author's Note:**

> !!!!!!!!!!!!!! please i just want the four of them in court's room doing something soft and comfort-y. or even tease-y. just give me ot4 + courtney's bedroom. i will pay someone for it.
> 
> (title from nights by neon trees)

It has been, quite possibly, the worst week of Courtney’s life.

Yeah, she’d once broken her leg the night before the California state gymnastics championship. And yes, she’s felt a little bit empty every Christmas for the past decade ever since her dad just…didn’t show up. But this week takes the cake, for sure. No contest.

Because Henry King Jr., nephew of her superhero dad, is dead because of her. And _then_ , on top of that, her _real_ dad—not Sylvester Pemberton aka Starman, but Sam Kurtis—had decided that now would be the best time to just drop in and ruin everything. _Take_ everything. Her time to grieve for Henry (and to be there for Yolanda), her belief in her heroic lineage, her last source of comfort in her necklace— _everything_.

She’s not even Stargirl anymore, since the Staff has just decided to stop working for her, too—though she understands where it’s coming from, seeing as she’s a fraud now. ( _Now_? She’s _been_ a fraud.) Not a hero at all, just a cocky kid from the West Coast who’d been selfish enough to think she could stop _real life supervillains_. Just a girl who’d been responsible for not one but _two_ deaths, innocent kids she’d liked and believed she could protect.

It’s all her fault, really. She doesn’t even get to cry for hours on end like she wants (though she feels like she doesn’t deserve that luxury) because she has to go to _school_. She has to go to school and tell her best friends—the loves of her life, if she’s being honest—that none of it had been real. That she’s leaving Blue Valley and she loves them but she can’t let them do this—take on the ISA.

Courtney has never loved anyone like she loves them. Now she’s going to leave them. (A punishment that fits the crime.)

She doesn’t say anything, of course—her stomach is too volatile to handle any semblance of confrontation, and she can barely choke out the fact that she’s not even _Stargirl_ anymore because the staff decided against her worthiness. Tears pour down her face (despite the _insistence_ that she’s fine) when Beth and Yolanda and Rick all try and reach out to her, try to remind her of who she is; they’re wrong but _god_ she loves them so much. She has to leave them so they’ll stop putting themselves in danger. The ISA is too much for them, even _with_ her and the staff involved. She refuses to let their names be added to her running list of _lives forever ruined_.

The rest of the day passes about the same. Courtney doesn’t cry but she doesn’t talk at all, and half of her class time is spent in the bathroom desperately trying to keep herself together while hunched in the privacy of a stall.

Needless to say, _yes_ , this is the worst week of her life.

Pat picks her up from school like normal, but today he knows not to pull his usual dad joke routine. Courtney sits in the front seat of his car, clutching her backpack, barely keeping the tears back, and Pat lets the radio play to fill the silence. Courtney loves him, too—how can he look at her the same after all this? Not even her real dad could stand to be around her after travelling _several_ states to see her. It sits heavy in her gut and she loses track of time feeling its weight.

“Court.” Pat’s voice breaks through her thoughts, and she looks up at him. The look on his face hurts her. (So much sadness. So much pity.) “We’re home.”

_Not for long_ , she wants to say. _Not when we run because of what I got us into_. “Oh. Thanks,” is all she says. The walk to the house feels both too long and instant; in a moment (to her), she’s curled up in bed, backpack thrown aside on her floor with all her schoolwork in it. (As Rick would say, _Fuck It_.)

Court isn’t sure how long she’s been lying there when she hears a knock at her door. Probably Mike, since he’s had loads of questions that Pat (thankfully) won’t answer. She feels bad that he’s so out of the loop but _god_ she cannot talk to him right now.

“Come in,” she groans, lifting her face from her mountain of pillows. Maybe if she looks sad enough, she’ll get him to leave without asking any questions.

The door creaks. “Courtney?”

_That’s not Mike_.

No, actually, it’s her kind-of boyfriend Rick Tyler, looking remarkably worried for someone who a few short months ago seemed only interested in revenge. Court would tease him about it, but honestly, seeing his face just reminds her of how temporary Blue Valley had turned out to be. It sickens her.

He steps through the doorway and is followed by Beth and Yolanda (who are holding hands because of _course_ they are) as the heavy reminder of her failure presses down on her. Courtney can’t look at them a moment longer, and she buries her head in a pillow, curling up tighter under her sheets. The hole in her heart where Stargirl used to be aches viciously. A warm hand rests on her shoulder and she exhales shakily, trying her best to keep a lid on her emotions.

“Court,” Beth murmurs. Her voice is soft, cautious. “You’re not _not_ Stargirl.” Courtney curls up in her cocoon tighter, no longer capable of hiding her tears. A strangled sob rattles from somewhere deep in her chest and lands in her pillow, and she draws in a shaky, sputtering breath. The hand on her shoulder—Beth’s, no one else’s could be so warm and gentle and soft all at once—tightens. It’s comforting but Courtney can’t handle it, she _can’t_ because it’s not—she doesn’t even deserve _that_ —she messed all this up and the Staff left her as punishment and it’s _justified_ , it’s all _justified_ —

“The Staff—the Staff doesn’t _want_ me anymore—” Courtney can’t even finish speaking the thought because it makes her so sick. Her sobbing becomes less restrained, and she burrows further into her bed. Beth’s hand withdraws as another shuddering sob rolls through her. It is _exhausting_ to be abandoned by the things she loves and believes in, and she is _tired_ of it. She is so, so tired.

The bed dips closer to where she’s curled up, and someone sidles up to her side, wrapping an arm around her loosely over her bunched-up comforter. On her left, the bed dips again—this time, though, Court peers up from her mountain of pillows to see Beth’s face, full of kindness and love, staring right back at her. She reaches her hand out and tries to clumsily swipe a tear away with her thumb. (The contact is still warm, still so deeply Beth—the crying stops almost immediately.)

“That can’t be true,” she answers honestly, her voice still quiet but firm with Beth-only knowledge. “You’re the heart of all this, Courtney Whitmore. There’s no way the Staff doesn’t want you.”

“Fuck the Staff,” Rick mumbles. (Courtney realizes it must be him nestled into her side, because the words seem to vibrate against her shoulder.) The words are harsh to her heart, and they feel a little unnecessarily sharp because she _still_ loves it even if it abandoned her…but Rick is also warm, and he’s _solid_ , and he’s right there.

Courtney removes herself from where she’d been hiding in her blankets and rolls in the other direction, face-planting into the side of Rick’s shoulder so that he can wrap his arms around her properly. Tears start to prick at her eyes again— _hasn’t she cried enough today?_ —and she shakes her head, smudging them on Rick’s hoodie so that they don’t leave her eyes.

“C’mon, Court,” he murmurs, twisting their embrace a little so that he can sit up in her bed and bring Courtney up with him. She goes willingly and pulls back from Rick just in time for Beth to come crashing in right after him.

“Group hugs don’t work on beds,” she mumbles into Courtney’s ear, and Courtney chokes on a soft little laugh as she wraps her arms around Beth. “We want you here, staff or no staff.”

Courtney doesn’t really know what to say to that one, so she nods silently, resting her head on Beth’s shoulder heavily. For a moment, she closes her eyes to take it in. The warmth of her friends—her _best_ friends in the whole world, her boyfriend and girlfriend and girlfriend in the weirdest little town in Nebraska—is enough to ease the black hole in her heart. They love her. They love her even if she’s a fake, even if she’d been the headstrong one this whole time dragging them into—

Her dangerously-spiraling thoughts are cut off when she opens her eyes to see Yolanda gazing at her, sitting cross-legged on the bed with one of Rick’s feet propped up a little on her knee.

She loves them. She _loves_ them.

As if she’d heard all those thoughts rattling around in her head from a moment ago, Yolanda reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind Courtney’s ear. “Courtney,” she murmurs, scooting closer so that their knees are touching on the bed like they’d done all that time ago. (Rick’s muffled noise of surprise is replaced with a supportive hum.) “Your dad didn’t make you Stargirl. _You_ did. The Staff knows that. It’s gotten you this far with your faith, right?”

It _has_ , hasn’t it? Pat had said all this time that no one really knew where the Staff had come from, only that Sylvester had been the only one who’d been able to work it. It must’ve known, at least on some level, who Courtney was. And really, she’d never done anything to _hide_ her identity, right? It could’ve read her fingerprints and figured out who she was and where she’d come from, and _still_ it worked.

It chose her.

It did…didn’t it?

“Yeah,” she murmurs out loud. Yolanda nods at the affirmation and scoots even closer, although this time she closes the distance between them and presses a soft, tender kiss to the right of Courtney’s mouth.

“You’re Stargirl whether your dad is a living asshole or a dead superhero,” Rick assures. He sits up a little and gently rests his palm against her lower back. “You’re Stargirl to _me_ , and _Beth_ , and _Yolanda_ —nothing can change that.” Courtney turns to look back at him and chuckle-exhales when she notices the way he casts a disdainful look towards the basement. “Not even if the stupid Staff tries to convince you otherwise.”

“You’re a _hero_ , Courtney. You’re our hero.” Courtney turns the other way to look at Beth and is almost blinded by the full-force beam directed at her. She opens her mouth to say something—she’s not really sure what’s going to come out, considering the way she’s still not entirely convinced she won’t start crying again—when she hears a tap at the door.

_Is that Pat_? No one had tried to announce who it was.

“Who is it?” Courtney asks, her heart fluttering a little at the way the three people she loves most in the world shift a little around her protectively. It’s probably just Pat, or her mom—neither of whom she’s really explained any of the whole group-dating thing to, so this will probably be a shock—and she can’t help the instinct that takes over as she crawls forward, arms cautiously outstretched to keep the three of them behind her.

No one answers, but the door creaks open anyway.

Bright, unfiltered light explodes through the room—Rick, Beth, and Yolanda all cover their eyes and yelp at the unexpectedness of it. Courtney is breathless with realization.

“Hey— _you came back to me!_ ”

The Staff makes a bright, melodic noise and whizzes to her bedside, pulses of light running rampant back and forth on its metallic surface. Courtney thinks it sounds like _I’m never leaving you again_.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this was probably a rough read but it has been A TIME trying to get it finished and i figured i should just put it out there for people to Conceptualize and all that.
> 
> thank u for reading <3 hit me up on tumblr @koridick xoxo


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